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Latest News
From operator to entrepreneur: David Garcia applies outage management lessons
David Garcia
If ComEd’s Zion plant in northern Illinois hadn’t closed in 1998, David Garcia might still be there, where he got his start in nuclear power as an operator at age 24.
But in his ninth year working there, Zion closed, and Garcia moved on to a series of new roles—including at Wisconsin’s Point Beach plant, the corporate offices of Minnesota’s Xcel Energy, and on the supplier side at PaR Nuclear—into an on-the-job education that he augmented with degrees in business and divinity that he sought later in life.
Garcia started his own company—Waymaker Resource Group—in 2014. Recently, Waymaker has been supporting Holtec’s restart project at the Palisades plant with staffing and analysis. Palisades sits almost exactly due east of the fully decommissioned Zion site on the other side of Lake Michigan and is poised to operate again after what amounts to an extended outage of more than three years. Holtec also plans to build more reactors at the same site.
For Garcia, the takeaway is clear: “This industry is not going away. Nuclear power and the adjacent industries that support nuclear power—and clean energy, period—are going to be needed for decades upon decades.”
In July, Garcia talked with Nuclear News staff writer Susan Gallier about his career and what he has learned about running successful outages and other projects.
Kiyoshi Yoshikawa et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 4 | May 2005 | Pages 1224-1228
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Nonelectric Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A854
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Current results are described on the research and development of an advanced anti-personnel landmine detection system by using a compact discharge-type fusion neutron source called IECF (Inertial-Electrostatic Confinement Fusion). Landmines are to be identified through backscattering of neutrons, and specific-energy capture -rays by hydrogen and nitrogen atoms in the landmine explosives.For this purpose, improvements in the IECF were made by various methods to achieve a drastic enhancement of neutron yields of more than 108 n/s in pulsed operation. This required R&D on the power source, as well as analysis of envisaged detection systems with multi-sensors. The results suggest promising and practical features for humanitarian landmine detection, particularly, in Afghanistan.
